


In Fields and Mountains

by Tathri



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Heavy Angst, I'm sad and it's my duty to make everyone else just as miserable, prepare for sadness, rip my heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 11:13:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5537756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tathri/pseuds/Tathri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A post-episode 13 ROK reaction. Sukuna Gojou loses his second family, and follows the spared vassal to an unfamiliar place in the mountains.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Fields and Mountains

The first night is a daze. Surreal, like a constantly sifting, melting picture that relentlessly continues to display empty frames where there should be smiling faces and two soft, serene spaces. They've walked for several hours, criss-crossing intersections and side routes, wandering far outside the traditional inner-city scouting that Sukuna branded into his instinctual direction. His bottom lip is sore, but he's been biting it strenuously enough to draw blood half the time. Mostly to stifle the hiccuping noises that crawl from the depths of his throat, as well as to seal off the scorching hurt dwelling there. 

Instead of returning to their King, at the epicentre of the underground labyrinth which <Jungle> had claimed as its heartland, they're leaving that place. Farther and farther, a view blocked by shimmering towers of glass and the concrete jungle of blocked-in houses. The fingers of his good hand clench and unclench relentlessly, scoring tiny marks into the pit of his palm. A sense of dull nausea is brimming at the back of his head, and the pit of his stomach. His mouth tastes sour, a chalky mess of dried blood and self-loathing, but they have no time to stop. Not once does the streaming jacket in front of him pause, nor does Yukari turn to survey his companion. They've traded sparse few glances between each other, although Sukuna doesn't mind it. Yukari's face, despite a single period of softening, has rescinded to a steely, disaffected portrait of emotional withdrawal. 

Sukuna hates that, with a sick, resentful passion. He hates Yukari. He hates his calm. He hates that the sword-swinging, beauty-obsessed presence didn't let him go, and run to his king's side, even if it meant he was crushed under falling rubble and swallowed up in the tomb of Tokyo's underground. He hates that, because at the same time, he'd do anything to taper over the hollow vacuum tearing away at his memories. He doesn't feel safe. The exhaustion is wearing down on him, piling upon the raw soles of his feet, and the dense throbbing of his broken arm. In the paradox of his scathing, bitter spite, Yukari is his only anchor.

They finally arrive at a safehouse, after an eternity of evading blue-speckled patrols and civilian distress vehicles. Not a single glint of green can be spotted in the fleeting figures that clung to the alleys alongside them. But that's only natural. There's no source of the sparkling <Jungle> anymore, nor any other king. Not even the dull, hazy mist of Gray.

Half-an-hour drags on, an unrecorded space of shuddered breaths and the noise of cooking from the mini-kitchen. A small sofa was stowed away in the corner, near a lowered table and four seating pillows. The familiarity of it brings back a terrifying weight, so naturally Sukuna curls up on the couch, facing inwards, hugging his knees to his chest. He can focus on the noise of stirring, pans hissing with cooked rice, vegetables, and tiny portions of meat. It smells good, which is another thing Sukuna hates. He doesn't want to be reminded that the world can be filled with warm, tasty things, not like it used to. 

"Sukuna." The lyrical voice near his ear springs him from semi-consciousness. He hadn't noticed that the plates stopped clinking, or that the burners had been shut off five minutes past. 

He doesn't want to turn his head. So he stiffens and regresses inwards, refusing. 

Yukari touches his shoulder, which only worsens the strife. He can feel himself trembling, but with no means to suppress it. 

A soft sigh resounds from above, alongside a clear resignation to the inevitable. Good. He's not hungry, he's not interested in the alluring, sickly sweet smell of the food. He'd rather starv-.

Yukari's other hand grasps his second shoulder, and he's physically lifted from the couch in a single swinging motion.

"Yukari...!" The surprise lures the voice out of him, another thing that Sukuna (unsurprisingly) hates in this moment. His own voice is pathetic, meek, and hoarse. But the older, much taller presence is clearly indifferent, plopping him down on a cushion with a warning glance not to flee. 

There's an ~~un~~ appetizing bowl of softly sizzling, delicately prepared rice and portions prepared on a very thoughtful tray. Yukari's is mediocre in comparison, a spartan display of necessities in order to keep his body in prime condition. Sukuna hadn't said a word about it, and in truth barely noticed, but his older clansman has been favouring his right side all evening. He's slower than usual, ever so slightly dragging himself and leaving his left side untouched and limp.

However, Sukuna despises that, too. If Yukari hadn't been hurt, if he hadn't  _lost_ like he did...!

His silvered-green eyes quiver, tingling with regrets. 

"Eat." The word is enunciated more like a command from the man that gingerly lowers himself down across from the dinner table that's absent two members. 

Sukuna rotates his stiff neck, spotting a pair of cheap, cornerstore chopsticks at the side of his plate. Numbly, more of of habit than sense, he tries to grab them with the cast around his broken right wrist. He can't.

Yukari doesn't comment.

He manages to grasp them after a few clumsy swipes with his left, but his grip's shaky and weak. Separating them alone is difficult. They won't get loose, and he's tired, he's bad at simple gentle things like prying loose the wooden bits without breaking them. Usually the drunkard takes care of it.

"Oi, Iwa-san, hel-" His tongue freezes and goes stale, his entire body stiffening at the mistake that starts to strangle down on his heart. It's beating hard, pumping against his chest, reminding him of how stupid he is, berating him for being an idiot. He can't help that he was unlucky, no, too weak to handle a traitor, or the traitor's dumb, persistent friend. He tried, he was trying, but it wasn't good enough to even stop himself from saying something careless! 

The chopsticks fall free from his hand and clatter noisily onto the table. His left hand clamps over his mouth to suffocate the sob, but it comes anyway. Brimming tears begin to compress against his squeezed-shut eyelids, and his shoulders shudder helplessly. 

He doesn't dare look to remind himself that Iwa-san is not there anymore. 

_Nor will he ever be._

He's still trying, uselessly, to plug the emotional cascade, but it feels like pushing back an avalanche. Clenching his teeth only makes the noises worse. The croaking sobs leak free, a barrage of self-loathing. 

_I'm worthless._

If he couldn't even help his king when it mattered most, then what good was he to begin with?

_I'm trash._

If he hadn't listened to Nagare's insistent calls for patience, and just finished the traitor off early.. None of this would've happened!

Moisture spills down his cheeks. 

_I'm shameful._

Yukari snaps the chopsticks apart. It's a sound that sharply cracks through the internal attacks, forcing him to open his eyes and glare. He aims daggers at _him_ , the only target he has aside from himself.

"Sukuna," the feathery voice is gentle, an aspect that absurdly hurts  _more_. Extended are the two, perfectly separated utensils. 

He shakily accepts them, a mistake that causes his grieving to become slightly more vocal.

"You can cry." The tender indication smacks him hard, not because Yukari was insensitive, but because he's unable to process it.

He hates it.

He hates that he's the one to feel this way. That Yukari's not shed a single tear, that this entire time he's been entirely unaffected. It makes it worse. 

He squeezed a fist around the slender tools, pinpointing his focus into a single place in order to regain a modicum of control over himself. 

"Then why aren't you!?" His fist slammed into the tray, upsetting its contents messily. He doesn't care. The angry, scornful shout and the clashes surprises Kotosaka, erstwhile silent up until this point. The parrot responded in turn by squawking loudly, fluttering across the room to retreat into the kitchen and away from the volatile, emotional youth. It only encourages him further.

"It's your fault!" He's overcoming the weakened coil of his own voice by raising it further, mounting the attack with relentless volume. He clambers up to his feet, staging himself in fierce opposition to the 'enemy'. Yukari's eyes widen a slight notch, but Sukuna presses to prevent him the opportunity to defuse the situation.

"You were supposed to protect him! You're the reason! If you hadn't lost, Nagare would still be here! Iwa-san would still be here!" His body is quaking, but he can't help it. "If we'd gone there, together, we could have saved them! Why didn't you let us!? Why didn't you go!? YUKAR-!"

The slap resounds harshly across his cheek. Yukari's movements, his wound notwithstanding, are lightning grace. Sukuna barely realizes he's been struck until his vision is wrenched sideways and his cheek begins to pulse. Even if its strength was greatly diminished, it still topples Sukuna to the ground, teetering him to the brink.

It's more alarming than it is painful. His eyes dilate, his breathing intensifies. Up until he joined <Jungle>, Sukuna had never been struck by a parent, or even a friend. He was shielded, placed in a bubble, and prevented from seeing the cruelties of that world. In similarity, Iwa-san, Nagare, and Yukari had offered a kind, and welcoming home, tolerating of mistakes and intimate in success.

He doesn't know what to do in the face of discipline or punishment. His rebellion abruptly put down, he's left with no other option than to resign. Sukuna cries. Succumbing to the emotional weight and abandoning his last vestige of retaliation, overwhelmed by his own tantrum. He slumps into a ball, half-cowering, half-embracing himself, clutching the mark on his cheek and letting the emotional surge overtake his last defense. Yukari is there a moment later, even though Sukuna refuses to look at him.

"What are we going to do about you?" The senior clansman murmurs soothingly, plucking up the child he's inherited and gingerly propping him into the swath of a hug.

* * *

The meal is mostly scavenged. Besides being flipped, relatively little food was actually spoiled, and after being reheated was shoveled down at an (admittedly not-so-beautiful) pace. Sukuna then promptly faceplanted on the couch, was draped in a blanket, and fell asleep moments later.

Kids really are astounding.

The cleanup was relatively simple, a mindless task to soak and wash the remarkably fewer dishes than normal. Soapwater does awful things to the skin, so he usually delegated the task to Iwa-san in exchange for errands or meal duties. Small morsels were fed to a calmed Kotosaka, the bird gently cooing from its roost above the fridge. He'll never serve as a medium anymore, hm? Reaching up and stroking its neck feathers, much to the parrot's clear pride, Yukari gave a tiny, sad smile. He couldn't cry as easily as Sukuna did. Even if he might want to, all he could hear in the back of his mind was one of the many, much-recited adages by his old master.

Was he laughing from heaven now, at his pupil's predicament? It felt peculiarly nostalgic to be in the reverse position. After all, he could still vividly remember the doe-eyed, skittish, tiny youth that Ichigen had plucked from a snow bank. Half-dead and eternally suspicious of others, voraciously consuming dishes of food in the most unsightly way. Yukari had been exasperated, scolding his master's weakness to children. Now, it was so bitterly ironic.

Spared by the child his master had taken in, and left to pick up the pieces of another.

_In fields and mountains_

_Though our colours may differ_

_We're Ichigen's seeds_

"Kuroh-chan, you're awfully unfair to your senior disciple, aren't you?" Wistfully, he spoke those words of parting that he hadn't been given the opportunity to. He'd burned every memory of their last dance into his brain. Every swing, every feint, every dodge, and especially each frame of that finale. It was a masterpiece unique to they, and they alone. He'd never match the steps with another, not if he lived ten lifetimes, but that wasn't what he mourned. The duel had been to decide who would race to assist their king, and he'd revoked his right the moment that he willed his junior apprentice to end his life. 

Mishakuji Yukari was alive, and yet not. His previous identity, the J-ranker in <Jungle>, the elite clansman and sword of the Green King's dream, had died alongside Iwa-san and Nagare. His new self, or rather, his 'old' self reborn was the wandering disciple of Ichigen Miwa, colourless King. They were all colourless, now. It was unlikely he'd ever see his junior disciple again, but that prospect didn't unsettle him anymore. The grand question had been settled, and he was satisfied with Kuroh's reply.

What was left was...

"Iwa-san, Nagare, you'll be watching now, too, hm?" The faint, listless use of the names instilled a deep sorrow in him.

"Nagare! Nagare! Iwa-san! Iwa-san!" Kotosake crooned the names, fussing slightly. A few more strokes to the parrot's feathers and the bird calmed.

Sukuna, and you too, Kotosaka.

"Really, we didn't prepare a contingency plan did we? But I suppose that's the way we lived." The most insurmountable of odds, and they'd been completely and utterly beaten. He didn't mind that, though. That was the stage they'd prepared, where the comic drama transitioned to tragedy. He would've liked to see Nagare and Iwa-san one final time, but he knew their grave, and that was sufficient.

The bouquet of purple anemones represented everything he could say to them, wordlessly.

The wound in his side ached, and the swordsman silently understood that he'd likely never wield a weapon in the same way again because of it. Not due to its physical ramifications, but because it had cut far deeper than flesh. In truth, he would have preferred being able to limp his way to the sanctum where Nagare was, even in the state he'd been, and to share the same tomb as his King. That would have been his fading expression of life, vividly perishing at the height of his beauty.

Yet, as Kuroh had awfully and indirectly reminded him, that there was another seed still lost in the chaos. He wouldn't have been able to face his master if abandoned that child, would he?

"I'll be a little while longer, Ichigen-sama."

* * *

The train ride swiftly left the glistening cityscape in the distance. Flying by, a glittering paradise of potential for anyone and everything. Sukuna's cheek rested against the glass, searing the narrowing images into memory. They would only return on that special occasion, a fact that the boy seemed to understand implicitly. The grief had settled into a silent stage of acceptance, his earlier rebellious disdain overwritten by a solemn swallowing of the cold reality. Yukari had been impressed by the maturity, ruffling his hair gently as they purchased the tickets to send them to a nostalgic place.

"Where are we going?" Sukuna probed the question sulkily for the fifth time.

"A familiar and unfamiliar place. Exciting, isn't it?" Yukari's elusive answers were clearly intended to tease.

"Ehhhhhhhh? Yukari, you said you'd tell me once we were almost there." A child's sense of 'almost there' and 'not even close' was mutually exclusive.

"Hm, that's true, isn't it. Then, I'll tell you when we're on the bus." 

The answer did not change when they boarded a tired, unpopulated bus after a three hour wait at one of the last stations. Only two other passengers clambered aboard, an elderly couple that had bought Sukuna some coffee at the rest stop after being fascinated with the very well-behaved Kotosaka. The caffeine made his energy level slightly more untolerable.

It quickly became a guessing game, encouraged by a guiding series of 'maybe' and 'oh, it could be', which fussily annoyed Sukuna to no end. The youth lost interest once the caffeine high wore away, and then promptly crashed, napping the remaining two hours before their stop arrived.

"It's here, Sukuna." 

"How far?"

"Maybe an hour's walk."

"Ehhhhhhhh."

The countryside hadn't changed since he'd visited, a fact that reassured as well as sealed a silent sadness in Yukari. Sukuna didn't understand the ramifications, but obediently followed down the tired dirt roads that snaked and swerved into the mountain. 

The ripe, thick smell of fresh earth mingled with the sweeter nuance of spring's blossoms. Soon enough, the fields would be sown with a fresh crop, and the village's children would be racing down the paths towards the small school shared with neighboring districts. In opposition to the reckless, densely urban atmosphere <Jungle> had thrived in, this was more akin to an oppressive empty space.

They paused briefly before a grave in the curvature of the valley. It was slightly overgrown, so he tidied it extensively while Sukuna wandered. 

Inevitably, the question arose.

"Did you know them?" The subject of mortality and loss was still sore, but the boy was graceful enough to avoid the bluntest of questions.

"Mmh, for quite a while, yes. I haven't had the time to visit lately. I'm sure he would have liked to meet you, as well." Sukuna didn't seem to be convinced, but inspected the grave's surface and attempted to pronounce the engraved, elaborate characters. He failed clumsily.

"Hm, Iwa-san was spoiling you, I see. We're going to have to be relentless about that, too, aren't we, Sukuna? It won't do if you can't read and write beautifully." Tsking, to the boy's grave distress, Yukari at last arranged a new farewell gift of flowers and dragged a complaining Sukuna back to the path.

* * *

They arrived roughly an hour after noon, mostly because they stayed a tad too long at granny Watanabe's house in order to fetch the keys. She had been quite taken with Sukuna, to the boy's extraordinary discomfort, although he'd still eaten at least two sticks of dango. That child knew how to take advantage of situations, didn't he? How troublesome.

The house had been preserved, intact and pristine, and largely devoid of damage from the seasonable influx. It was a co-owned property, the deed technically split between two of Ichigen's disciples, although Kuroh's visits to the house itself seemed sparse. He had a different place to return to, after all.

"This it it?" Sukuna's unimpressed tone gave an indication of the fallen expectations that had been bloated and misled by continuous playful refusals. "It's out of the way, it's stuffy, and it's tiny." 

"That's right. Reminds you of our old home, doesn't it?" 

Sukuna flinched, dropping his shoulders and lowering his head. The peculiar, one-room hideout, safehouse, and 'home' they'd claimed for themselves in the underground had been an invention of abnormalities, but its domestic warmth was very genuine.

Yukari ruffled the boy's hair a second time, smiling softly. Kotosaka stretched his wings, having settled on Yukari's shoulder for most of the trip, squawking happily at the freedom allowed by the vast property attached, and leapt into the air in order to explore.

* * *

While in one of the house's many, tiny reserved side rooms, frisking out cobwebs and specks of dust, Sukuna stumbled across a framed picture on the home's altar. The man posed was smiling kindly, his expression and demeanor all too familiar to one face in particular.

A few days later, two separate dedications joined it. Unknowingly, three Kings were memoralized in that space. One colourless, whose disciples had inherited him. One gray, who had strived to change the past. One green, who had strived to change the future.

After all, to truly make it home, the house needed Nagare and Iwa-san.

**Author's Note:**

> I took a few liberties with timeline and character. To be honest, I wrote this piece as a way to resolve my own feelings about Return of Kings' ending as well because I was inspired by it. It was an immensely emotionally taxing journey, but we've reached the end. Like Yukari and Sukuna, let's keep living happily while remembering the people along the way.


End file.
